Digital Redemption

Beautiful words

2008-01-20T20:56:06Z

I have heard this poem a number of times in sermons but it was not till today that I could remember who wrote it. It's called "The Hound of Heaven" by Francis Thompson. Thompson was an English poet that has often been compared to Milton, but he lived much of his life on the streets because he had a devastating cocaine addiction. Every time I hear this poem it is so beautiful.

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes I sped; And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat - and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet - "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me." I pleaded, outlaw-wise, By many a hearted casement, curtained red, Trellised with intertwining charities; (For, though I knew His love Who followèd, Yet I was sore adread Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.) But, if one little casement parted wide, The gust of His approach would clash it to. Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. Across the margent of the world I fled, And troubled the gold gateways of the stars, Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars; Fretted to dulcet jars And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon. I said to Dawn: Be sudden - to Eve: Be soon; With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over From this tremendous Lover - Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see! I tempted all His servitors, but to find My own betrayal in their constancy, In faith to Him their fickleness to me, Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. To all swift things for swiftness did I sue; Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, The long savannahs of the blue; Or whether, Thunder-driven, They clanged His chariot 'thwart a heaven, Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet: - Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. Still with unhurrying chase, And unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, Came on the following Feet, And a Voice above their beat - "Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me." Now of that long pursuit Comes on at had the bruit; That Voice is round me like a bursting sea: "And is thy earth so marred, Shattered in shard on shard? Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me! Strange, piteous, futile thing! Wherfore should any set thee love apart? Seeing none but I make much of naught" (He said), "And human love needs human meriting: How hast thou merited - Of all man's clotted clay, the dingiest clot? Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, Save Me, save only Me? All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms. All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: Rise, clasp My hand, and come." Halts by me that footfall: Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."

Wow, could you get more superficial?

2007-10-05T20:57:01Z

A listing that showed up on Craig's list not too long ago:

What am I doing wrong? Okay, I'm tired of beating around the bush. I'm a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I'm articulate and classy. I'm not from New York. I'm looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don't think I'm overreaching at all. Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around 200 - 250. But that's where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won't get me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she's not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I get to her level? Here are my questions specifically:

Where do you single rich men hang out? Give me specifics- bars, restaurants, gyms

What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won't hurt my feelings

Is there an age range I should be targeting (I'm 25)?

Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east side so plain? I've seen really 'plain jane' boring types who have nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys. I've seen drop dead gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village. What's the story there?

Jobs I should look out for? Everyone knows - lawyer, investment banker, doctor. How much do those guys really make? And where do they hang out? Where do the hedge fund guys hang out?

How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for MARRIAGE ONLY

Please hold your insults - I'm putting myself out there in an honest way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I'm being up front about it. I wouldn't be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn't able to match them - in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a nice home and hearth.

And the first response ...

Dear Pers-431649184: I read your posting with great interest and have thought meaningfully about your dilemma. I offer the following analysis of your predicament. Firstly, I'm not wasting your time, I qualify as a guy who fits your bill; that is I make more than $500K per year. That said here's how I see it. Your offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a cr@ppy business deal. Here's why. Cutting through all the B.S., what you suggest is a simple trade: you bring your looks to the party and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here's the rub, your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity...in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won't be getting any more beautiful! So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. Not only are you a depreciating asset, your depreciation accelerates! Let me explain, you're 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you! So in Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold...hence the rub...marriage. It doesn't make good business sense to "buy you" (which is what you're asking) so I'd rather lease. In case you think I'm being cruel, I would say the following. If my money were to go away, so would you, so when your beauty fades I need an out. It's as simple as that. So a deal that makes sense is dating, not marriage. Separately, I was taught early in my career about efficient markets. So, I wonder why a girl as "articulate, classy and spectacularly beautiful" as you has been unable to find your sugar daddy. I find it hard to believe that if you are as gorgeous as you say you are that the $500K hasn't found you, if not only for a tryout. By the way, you could always find a way to make your own money and then we wouldn't need to have this difficult conversation. With all that said, I must say you're going about it the right way. Classic "pump and dump." I hope this is helpful, and if you want to enter into some sort of lease, let me know.

And the second response ...

Dear Pers-431649184: Your also came across your posting with great interest. I am a 28 year old Wall Street trader who qualifies as an eligible suitor under your $500k/yr rule. In fact, I make over a million and can usher a woman into a comfortable, true middle class lifestyle (not like those 500k lower-middle class chumps who have to make do with the junior two-bedroom). I am sympathetic to your goal in finding a rich man to marry. The milk needs to be sold by the expiration date. But since this is premium milk, why would you settle for less than premium prices? I would like to address some of the questions that were previously missed by the other gentleman and provide constructive advice on where to find your match. I also do believe in the efficient market theory, and am surprised that $500k hasn't found you yet. There are plenty of rich lawyers, investment bankers and hedgies to go around in this city. What gives? I think the problem might be that you have not been sufficiently focused in your search efforts. The culprit, I believe, may be that you are also looking for qualities aside from money - such as looks, personality, and a sense of humor. However, men who have those qualities learn at an early age that they do not need money to attract quality women. As the saying goes, if you can get the milk for free, why pay up for the cow? What you need to look for is someone who is long money, and short the other aspects. They are not easy to spot, since you are biologically wired to overlook and ignore them. However, the next time that you are at a expensive black tie event, and you are introduced to the short, bald, overweight man who fidgets nervously whilst making conversation with you, pay special attention to him. Here's an inspirational story for you. An acquaintance of mine who was also an classy and articulate woman as yourself was able to land that guy - who also happens to be one of the top ten guys at Google. This is the type of stuff that gold-digging moms read to their gold-digging daughters at bedtime. Perhaps you need to make a location change to Silicon Valley - miracles like these happen almost everyday in a land where you can randomly throw a rock and hit a rich nerd squarely in his Kim-jong Il glasses. And as far as his deficiencies go, they turned out to be not so bad. With hundreds of millions in the bank, she's been able to clean him up and give him a little sophistication. Think of it as a fixer-upper project with a massive budget (and yourself as a visionary real estate developer!). Although, I must warn you, it is a fine line you are flirting with - you must not overdo it lest he begins to attract younger women who are hotter than yourself. The trick is, you need build him up enough to be presentable, while simultaneously manipulate him into believing you are the best that he will ever do! That and having kids will be your insurance against your depreciation (or as I prefer to use the term, milk going sour). I wish the best of luck on your sales project. As for me, I am also available for a short-term lease. However, for marriage I wouldn't consider a woman unless she can bring beauty, brains and self-motivation to the table. I do not want to dilute my gene pool and end up raising a bunch of Paris Hiltons.

The funniest part about this post is her claim of, "I'm articulate and classy." Anyone who actually was classy would not be posting this message on Craig's list or anywhere else.

Long live the Fair Tax!

2007-09-27T22:51:25Z

I'm not sure any of can say that we feel warm and fuzzy inside when we see our paychecks and see how much has been taken out in taxes every pay period. In fact, if I stop and think about it makes me sick to think of how much of my money slimeball politicians are spending. I don't want to pay for a bridge to nowhere. I don't want to subsidize illegal immigration. I don't want to pay for all this crap that they are signing me up for. Recently I received a bonus of about $1300.00. Of that bonus I received just about $750! That's insane, nearly 42% or $550 of a bonus lost to taxes. I don't know about you but I think I know how to spend my money better than congress does and I'm tired of giving them so much. That's why I support the fair tax. It's an alternative tax system that is revenue neutral (meaning that no current programs will have to be cut) but promotes simplicty, and transparency over the current tax code. It also promises many economic benefits and the great hope that congress might be forced to lower taxes as a result of greater transparency. Now that's something I can get behind and would actually spend my money on to promote, so I signed up to support them financially... I really want to get the word out about this, you can read more on the website at http://www.fairtax.org/ and I have included the official short description below. Here's the official description: The FairTax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including a progressive national retail sales tax, a prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level, dollar-for-dollar federal revenue replacement, and, through companion legislation, the repeal of the 16th Amendment. This nonpartisan legislation (HR 25/S 1025) abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax -- administered primarily by existing state sales tax authorities. The IRS is disbanded and defunded. The FairTax taxes us only on what we choose to spend on new goods or services, not on what we earn. The FairTax is a fair, efficient, transparent, and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system.

When owning is not better...

2007-09-21T07:36:37Z

I feel like I've been exposed to ownership a fair bit by owning my own home and car. I know the benefits and draw backs of it all. What drives me crazy is when sales people equate owning to always being better than renting... yes, renting will never build you any equity; but depending on how much it will cost to purchase the item you wish to rent vs the costs of renting there are many instances when renting can be better than owning. A friend of mine won a trip to San Diego, all he had to do was go to a timeshare presentation and he got a free trip for him and 1 guest. We went to the timeshare presentation tonight and I must admit they do a good job of selling it. They make it sound like you are going to be saving all this money and get to stay at all these really cool resorts (they always corrected me when I called them hotels). It's a very high pressure type of deal, you have to decide on the spot, no time to think about the offer that they are making you. It has to be because if you ever went and ran the numbers you would never go for the deal. The presentation was by a company called Windmark which appears to be pretty much an outlet for Wyndham to sell their resorts to. They own 62 properties around the country and a few foreign locations and give you the option to buy additional days at discounted prices. They also have an "out of network" plan where you pay a base fee and give up some of your nights at "in network" hotels to stay at other hotels that are not owned by Windmark. It basically boils down to a room that sleeps 2 (1 bed) is available for about 14 days at a cost of $30,000.00 up front (they offer financing over 10 years at 14.4%) and $75.00/mo in maintenance fees. The number of nights you have available depends on where you want to go and when but this seems to be the average. During the sales pitch they are continually pressuring you that for smart money the only way to go is through their time shares. They were doing a good job selling it too because I kept finding myself thinking, "maybe I would like to do something like this." I continually had to tell myself anyone who wants you to make a decision immediately and is using the types of sales tactics that they were is hiding something. So I resisted the temptation and turned down their one-time offer. When I got home, out of curiosity I decided to run the numbers and see if it was a better deal. So I took the $408/month for 10 years plus the $75.00/month maintenance fee and invested the money at a hypothetical interest rate of 10.4% (the market average over the last 75 years). I then subtracted out 14 nights of hotel costs at a rate of $200.00 a night. I increased both the hotel rental and maintenance fees annually by 3% to keep up with inflation. Basically if after 45 years (when I turn 70) the value in the account is 0 dollars either decision would have been equally financially advantageous, if the account has money in it the time share was a bad deal, if it has negative dollars in the account then the time share was a good deal.... what do you think the final value of the account was after 45 years of vacations? If you said positive in the extreme you would have been right, by not going with the time share option and investing the money instead you would have accumulated 1.6 MILLION dollars in addition to paying for 14 days of hotels every year for the last 45 years. That's a lot of money to be throwing away. The long and short of it is that in no way is owning a timeshare at those rates better than renting a hotel room. It doesn't matter that you own it forever, what do you think that your kids would rather be inheriting a timeshare, or 1.6 million dollars of cold, hard cash? I wish I would have had those numbers available to show the sales guy. I wonder what he would have said?

Upgrading MythTV to run on Fedora 7 with kernel 2.6.22

2007-09-12T01:49:29Z

If you use MythTV you probably are aware by now that Zap2It labs has stopped providing free listing data as of 2007-09-01. There is an alternative though--schedulesdirect; a for fee service that is a drop in replacement for Zap2It labs ... except it costs $5.00/mo and you have to upgrade MythTV to 0.20.2 I was running MythTV 0.20 on FC4, it worked pretty well, excepting the occasional crash. I was planning on just upgrading to the new version of MythTV and leaving the OS at the current version. That is, that was the plan until I found out that atrpms.net no longer maintains packages for FC4. So I decided if I was going to have to compile source might as well update everything. That's when the adventure began. It turns out that things have changed a lot since FC4; especially with the IVTV driver (the driver that is used for the PVR-350 capture card I use). The driver has been integrated into the kernel as of 2.6.22. This is a good thing as it means the drivers have become much more stable but the documentation is still pretty lousy. Here's the outline of what I've had to do to get my box back and running... hopefully it will save you sometime: So what exactly didn't work when I upgraded:

The video capture card was not automagically detected like I thought it should.
Lots of problems getting MythTV to use the PVR-350 framebuffer for display... this required some code changes
LiRC does not start properly (this is not a new problem... I also ran into on FC4 also)

How I fixed it all I usually follow Jarod Wilson's "Fedora Mythtvology" guide when installing mythtv. The current version as of September 2007 is for Fedora 6. For the most part this will work fine for Fedora 7 as well. There's just a few quircks you have to be aware of due to the 2.6.22 kernel and ivtv. IVTV was integrated into the kernel as of 2.6.22 (so is ALSA, so you can skip the sound portion of the tutorial). When you get to the ivtv step do the following:

yum -y install ivtv ivtv-kmdl-$KVER ivtv-firmware

Next add the following 3 lines to /etc/modprobe.conf

alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-81-0 ivtv
install ivtv /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install ivtv; /sbin/modprobe ivtv-fb

That should do it on the ivtv, on your next reboot the /dev/video0 device should be working. Next, you will need to install the X-Driver. Since Fedora 7 uses X11 release 7 you will need a new x driver available here. Next install the xorg-server modules with:

yum -y install xorg-server

Now compile, like so:

cd ivtvdev directory
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
make install

Next edit the xorg.conf file in /etc/X11 like jarod describes, just change the driver name from ivtvdev to ivtv. Now when you reboot X should load up on the framebuffer. Now that you should be able to get video and load X on the framebuffer let's fix mythtv so it can show video on the framebuffer (in my experiance this looks much better than just using a video card). You have to patch the sources to include the controls for the new ivtv-fb commands as documented in 3486. Your options include simply building trunk which depending on the day, you never know exactly what you are going to get. Or you could back port the patch for 0.20.2. Fortunately I have already done that for you. You can download the SRPM here. This is basically a patched version of MythTV-0.20.2-165 from atrpms.net You should be up and running by now after one more reboot. Just setup mythtv to use the PVR-350 output device and your set. NOTE: If lircd does not start up properly on boot you might need to modify the /etc/init.d/lircd script to try and reload the lirc_i2c module if it failed: Include this after the "start() {" line

if [ `/sbin/lsmod | grep lirc` != ""]; then
echo -n $"Reloading lirc_i2c: "
/sbin/modprobe lirc_i2c
RETVAL=$?
echo
fi

Imaginary Friends

2007-08-09T13:54:13Z

This is a really good short film about the life of an imaginary friend.. definately worth a watch.

Home Schooling ... bad for your health

2007-07-15T05:57:29Z

Not all kids who are home schooled are socially mal-adjusted... but this one is missing a few of the basic social skills required. Check it out:

My new T60p

2007-06-19T20:54:34Z

UPDATE I have received the replacement T60p from Buy.com, it has the LG screen, NMB keyboard, and Intel wireless card. The LG screen is noticeably better than the samsung screen.. the colors are more vibrant, the horizontal lines that the showed up on the upper part of the screen on the samsung are not there on the LG, and there is less light leakage. While the LG screen is far better than the samsung it is still somewhat sparkly/grainy (oh, well I guess this is just the state of current widescreen technology). Also it seems that even though the Atheros card, which was in the original laptop, is supposed to be better than the Intel ABG card, which is in the new one, my new machine does not have the wireless problems that the other one had. Hurray! -------- ORIGINAL POST Well my new T60p has arrived. It came last week and overall I am very pleased with it. It is very fast and responsive (there's a lot of people out there bashing windows vista but I happen to love it and find it kind of hard to use windows XP now). The keyboard is also VERY nice and the machine works very well in general. Here's my complaints though: 1) The screen is noticeably grainy/ What I mean by this is there is something of a sparkle to the display, this is common on LCD's but it is driving me nuts. It feels worse than normal now, it's like I'm looking at the laptop through a screen door. I don't know maybe I am OCD because I never noticed it on my screen at work and now that one is bothering me too. I have sent the laptop back because I got the samsung screen which is supposed to suffer from this more than the LG so I am going to pay the extra $$$ and try and get the LG screen. I hope that the screen sparkle on the LG screens is less but I really like the Thinkpad T60's for the most part. 2) The wireless works well most of the time but occasionally it will drop out for no apparent reason and you will have to reboot the machine to get it back. 3) Windows Vista overall is very good but it's really annoying with all the things that it wants you to confirm... blegh, I just want it to do what I tell it too. I realize that they are trying to make it easier to notice if a virus or spyware is operating on your machine but it's really annoying and I think there might be better ways to accomplish the same thing (although I couldn't tell you any if you were to ask me.) WARNING, WHAT FOLLOWS IS A DRM SOAP BOX -- It's also somewhat insulting that they have added all these tools to help you prevent viruses and spyware while adding a fairamount of DRM which in my opinion is just as bad as spyware. DRM stands for Digital Rights Managment and Microsoft insists that it is good for the end user because it allows them to make more content available on the PC; but, I don't really buy this. That content that they are so concerned about being stolen will be made available without the DRM if there is a big enough market. The companies are profit driven and therefore if consumers demand that the content be available on the PC then it will be, otherwise it is not valuable. Adding DRM is just a cop out because the providers want it. The end user was nowhere in the equation when Microsoft added this. Just as an example of how DRM hurts the consumer, I purchased a small number of songs from Walmart's online download service. It was 88 cents a song plus tax (so about 94 cents total). The songs sounded fine quality wise and you had permission to burn them to CD up to 10 times. They also have a policy of not reissuing licenses. Well this is what bit me. I have the song files backed up but the licenses were not so now on my brand new computer I cannot play the music that I legally paid for only a few months ago. Walmart has a record of these purchases, I can see them on their website, however they will not reissue the licenses. DRM hurts consumers. In fact it punishes people for obeying the law (which is presumably what the record companies want). If I had illegally downloaded those songs I would have had no trouble transferring them to my new computer, but because I chose to legally download them and pay for them I am now stuck with unplayable songs and must purchase them again, a second time. END RANT

New Computer

2007-05-25T22:26:28Z

I know it has been quite sometime since my last post. If there's anyone out there still regularly checking this blog.. sorry. Anyway I have been in the market for a new computer. My old thinkpad finally bit the dust last november (at least the screen did) so I have been limping along with a crappy toshiba for the last 6 months. I was waiting for the laptops that featured Santa Rosa to come out but around the middle of april I decided that Santa Rosa wasn't worth waiting for and started seriously shopping for a new laptop. I began the search thinking I would not purchase another thinkpad as I was somewhat leary about them since they were sold to Lenovo. The major other computer I was looking at was a MacBook Pro. Well long story short I ended up back in the thinkpad's arms and settled on a Thinkpad T60. I ordered onsale at lenovo.com and expected it to take several weeks. It took just about 1/2 a month to get here, arriving on May 2nd. I opened it up and immediately started hacking away at it... it was great! I was very happy with my purchase. Up until this point I had been only using it with AC power. Well this is where my problems began. The machine would turn itself off every 2 or 3 minutes when it wasn't on AC (yes, the battery had been charged for a full 24 hours and was showing 100%). I thought upgrading the BIOS might fix this, it didn't. The problem progressed to the screen not turning on at all. I called Lenovo and asked to return the machine. They were friendly and issued an RMA for the old machine and helped me get a new order in (with slightly upgraded specs) for a replacement. They also assured me that I was on their critical list seeing as I had already been waiting 2 weeks+ for my laptop. That was back at the beginning of may. It is now almost the end of may and still no laptop. Oh well, it will get here when it gets here, I'm getting impatient though. On the upside lenovo has issued me a 10% discount in addition to my already discounted machine for having to wait so long. All in all I am getting this thing for about 50% less than what it usually costs! Read the extended entry to see the specs of the latpop. I'll post an update with how i like the computer after I receive it. 8743CTO LENOVO THINKPAD T60 8743 - NO CPU 42R9189 VBB INTEGR.WIFI WL 3RD ANTENNA 62P6054 VBB INTEGR.BLUETOOTH PAN 42R9315 SBB INTEL CORE 2DUO PROC T7200 42V8011 VBB MS WIN VISTA HOME PREMIUM 42T7246 SBB MS WINVISTA HOMEP US ENG 42T6598 SBB 15.4 W SXGA+/ TFT 42T6651 SBB ATI MOBILITY FIRE GL V5250 256MB 41W2060 VBB 1GB PC2-5300 667MHZ 1DIMM 39T6476 SBB KEYBOARD US ENGLISH 27R0300 VBB INTEGR. FINGERPRINT SENSOR 42T6648 SBB ULTRANAV TRACKPOINT/TOUCHP 41W5790 SBB 100 GB,HDDRIVE,7200RPM 42T7315 SBB DVD RECORD_8XMAXDUAL L UBS 42R9191 SBB THINKPAD 11N #1 41W1508 SBB 6 CELL LI-ION BATTERY 39T6442 SBB COUNTRY PACK NORTH AMERICA 27R1769 SBB PSTN CABLE 42T7374 SBB LANG.PACK US ENGLISH 39T6440 SBB 56K V.92 DESIGNED MODEM 27R1540 SBB ATI LABEL 42T7162 SBB CLEAR PLATE C2P WLAN+BT 41W1721 SBB FCC LABEL 41W1749 SBB GEO LABEL US WLAN BT 41W1774 SBB LOGO PLATE 42T6657 SBB MT 8743 SYSTEM LABEL 42T7135 SBB INTEL LABEL CORE-2 93P7250 SBB THINKPAD LOGOPLATET-SERIES 42V7972 SBB MS LABEL (VISTA PREMIUM) 42V8063 SBB MS WAU ENGLISH NA-U MODELS 41W2071 SBB 1GB PC2-5300 667MHZ MEM. 42T6638 SBB PACK. US, 15.4"

Chicago and St. Patty's Day

2007-03-18T05:24:45Z

I've been visiting friends in Chicago for the last few days and have had many good times. I'll write about them more later but as St.Patrick's day is coming to a close I thought I would share some Irish toasts with you all. Here they are: Saint Patrick was a gentleman, Who through strategy and stealth, Drove all the snakes from Ireland, Here’s a toasting to his health. But not too many toastings Lest you lose yourself and then Forget the good Saint Patrick And see all those snakes again. --- May the light always find you on a dreary day. When you need to be home, may you find your way. May you always have courage to take a chance And never find frogs in your underpants. --- Here's to lying, stealing, and cheating! May you lie to save a friend; May you steal the heart of the one you love; and may you cheat death. --- As you slide down the banister of life, may the splinters never point in the wrong direction. --- Here's to the old lady up the hill. If she won't drink it, I will! --- Here's wishing you the top o' life without a single tumble. Here's wishing you the smiles o' life and not a single grumble. Here's wishing you the best o' life and not a claw about it. Here's wishing you the joy in life and not a day without it. --- May Christ and His Saints stand between you and harm. Mary and her Son. Patrick with his staff. Martin with his mantle. Brigid with her veil. Michael with his shield. And God over all with His strong right hand. --- May the sun shine all day long, Everything go right and nothing go wrong. May those you love bring love back to you And may all the wishes you wish come true! --- Walls for the wind And a roof for the rain, And drinks beside the fire. Laughter to cheer you And those you love near you. And all that your heart may desire.

"Rich" desktop clients vs "Thin" web clients

2007-03-09T22:28:11Z

The debate has been raging for some time now: what's better AJAX applications or network aware desktop clients? Both camps have some good reasons but in general I fall in the web application AJAX camp. Many times when I read write ups on the pros and cons of each philosophy I walk away feeling the author has made some reasonable points. But, every now and again I come across an article that makes outrageous claims with a fairly weak argument. Recently I came across the following article when looking into bug tracking software: http://www.prtracker.com/support/misc/BrowserBasedApplications.html. It claims that there are "Serious Problems with Browser-Based Applications." The juxt of the article revolves around browser incompatibilities and client-side caching. Basically the authors argue that the cost of maintaining a web application will soar as the developers must support a growing number of incompatibilities between browsers and on top of all that communication over the internet is simply too slow to support robust and responsive applications. So are these fair claims? In one hand they are reasonable complaints to make. Browser incompatibilities are notoriously annoying and can cause many hours of frustration and premature balding. But to say that this prevents browser based applications from being as efficient as desktop applications is a bit if a lie because desktop apps suffer from the same problems, just in a slightly larger context as they must ensure that they work across all different operating systems the application needs to be run on. This can be just as painful a task as maintaining compatibility between different browsers. Have you ever tried reading from a serial port in windows and linux? Trust me, it's not a fun thing to try and maintain. At least on this allegation I think we have to say that both desktop applications and browser based apps suffer from similar maladies. Although it's probably true that we have to consider cross-browser functionality more closely than cross-os as most of the population uses windows we can achieve a reasonable application by simply ignoring Linux, OS X, and other OS users. There is not such an overwhelming monoploy in the browser market so we are forced to struggle with the incompatibilities that exist between them. Some of these pains can be alleviated by using cross-browser ajax libraries to accomplish much of the functionality our applications provide. This puts the responsibility of maintenance across browsers on the library designers and allows the application writers to do what they do best. It's a similar approach to how a desktop application may choose to use QT or GTK as it's standard graphics toolkit instead of the native windows MFC widgets. This brings us to the second charge that because there is a lack of persistent caching desktop network applications are superior to browser based apps. To begin with this is just flat out wrong. Many solutions have emerged that allow developers to persistently store data on the client side easily and efficiently (dojo.storage comes to mind as one). But it is true that many browser based applications do not take advantage of these facilities like they should. To be sure browser based applications have a long way to go. Cross browser libraries are still in their infancy and we could do a much better job of making the power of the computer visible to the developer. However, there are also many inherent advantages to browser apps: if you take advantage of web standards you can concievably have your application work on all major operating systems out of the box, browsers are extremely mature presentation devices as a result many good programming practices are possible and there is a large pool of talent available for design, you can access the application from any computer with the internet available (this is great for travellers), and this is just a few of the benefits web apps bring to the table. Both desktop apps and browser apps have benefits and trade-offs but to claim that a browser based app is just flat out wrong for bug tracking is naive. There are lots of very good bug tracking packages that are solely web-based because it is simple for anyone to submit a bug if all they have to do is go to a webpage.

How do you make money in the stock market?

2007-02-28T17:48:03Z

Investing is a hobby for me. I don't know why I enjoy it so much but I do. It's cool to think that I can own a little piece of these gigantic companies like IBM and Johnson & Johnson. It's also an excellent way to grow your wealth. Historically speaking the stock market has out performed every other investment out there. Sure you might find that golden real estate investment that turns $2,000.00 into $1,000,000.00 but the chances of that happening are about like winning the lottery. Stocks offer a much more reliable return and by simply investing in an index fund you don't have to put that much effort into getting a good return (a bit more than 10% annually). This brings us to the question though of how exactly do people make money on the stock market? Unfortunately the answer is not so simple as there are lots of ways one can try to make money. Here's a run down of the options: 1) Price appreciation This is by far the most common and time tested way money is made with stocks. The basic premise is that over time good companies should become more valuable as they build their business and as a result the price each one of their shares will command appreciates. This may sound like a boring way to invest but it can result in some high octane, roller coaster investments, depending on which companies you choose. Some people approach it from the standpoint of trying to find companies that have excellent future growth prospects. These companies can be really exciting to get into and can make millions for investors but there is also inherent risk betting on these companies because you are basically betting that they will appreciate in value because some product they offer will make lots of money. Some examples of these "growth" stocks that have done very well in the last 20 years include: Microsoft, Starbucks, Apple Computer, etc. The alternative to growth investing is value investing. This style still relies on price appreciation as the method for generating profit but it tries to find companies that are trading below what the investor believes their current intrinsic value is. Of course, the investor believes this is just a temporary mispricing by the market and eventually the market will realize the mistake it has made and the price should appreciate to it's true fair market value. This style is not nearly as exciting but it can make investors a lot of money too. This was the way that the legendary investor Ben Graham taught people to invest. Obviously there are companies that can be growth companies that are also temporarily under-valued and there any number of combinations investors can take between the two styles. 2) Profit sharing Profit sharing is the second way investors can make money by purchasing stocks. These are sometimes referred to as dividend stocks. What happens here is that companies have decided to distribute some of their earnings to the owners of the company (shareholders) in the form of a dividend. This often happens on a quarterly or annual basis. This method of making money with stock market can produce very reliable results as the companies who typically distribute dividends are ones with solid, profitable, businesses. It's also important to note that this is not mutually exclusive to price appreciation; in fact, investors in dividend stocks also benefit from price appreciation. 3) Price depreciation (Short selling) Price depreciation is somewhat different from the previous two methods discussed. It relies on investors finding stocks that are currently overvalued by the market. What happens is an investor finds a stock he believes is currently selling for more than the company is worth. He then agrees to sell shares of the company he does not own at the current price with a committent to actually purchase the shares he sold at a later date. If the stock has declined in price from when the investor sold the stock then he has made money, if it has appreciated then the investor has lost moeny. This is known as short selling. Of the 3 methods discussed this is by far the friskiest method of investing but that's not to say that it cannot produce good results because many people have made sizeable fortunes doing just this.

A Note on Stock Brokers

2007-02-14T06:20:07Z

I enjoy investing, but I hate paying trade commissions. For a number of years I used Ameritrade as my primary broker; but a little over a year ago I switched to Firstrade. They had cheaper commissions at 6.95 a trade and free mutual fund investing for all funds they offered. Ameritrade had a better trading platform but Firstrade was passable and they were about half the price. Firstrade has been an interesting experience. They are a small brokerage and you can often tell as they are not very good about doing exactly what they say. For example they advertise a flat fee of 6.95 for unlimited shares. This seems pretty straight-forward, right? But, it's not what it seems because if you read the fine print you'll see that when they say unlimited they actually mean up-to 5,000 shares. They're website isn't great either. I've seen far worse but for the most part it comes up pretty mediocre. Navigation is simple but there are still too many tasks that require you to send in a paper form like automatic transfers, periodic mutual fund investment, etc. Recently, Firstrade has decided to get rid of their free mutual fund investing program and they have decided to charge 9.95 per transaction for No-load fund that are not on their no transaction fee list. The list is pretty limited so even though Firstrade still offers some of the lowest commissions in the industry there are other options that may be better. 1) Banc of America Investment Offers 40 free equity trades a month for people with $25,000.00 in assets at the bank outside of the brokerage. This is a great deal if you have a mortgage with Bank of America as it is simple to meet the balance requirement there; however, if you don't have a mortgage with BofA it could be kind of pricey as they are somewhat stingy with their interest rates on savings accounts. If you had $25,000.00 in a money market savings account you would earn 1.00% annually compared to about 5.00% elsewhere which means free trades is actually costing you about $1,000.00 a year. There are still ways to make this a good offer though by opening a high yield CD you can get a 5.00% APY which is competitive with other offerings. Mutual Fund trades are still very expensive compared to the competition so I am not crazy about this offer just yet. Maybe if BofA started including mutual funds in the 40 free trades offer and allowed you to count the balance in your investment accounts towards the minimum balance I would be more interested. They could also start offering an online only high yield savings account that might make this offer more attractive. 2) Wells Fargo Investment Wells Fargo's offer is similar to Bank of America's. They are offering 100 free trades a year if you have a combined balance of $25,000.00 or more with them. They allow you to include balances in your investment account towards that total which is really nice. Those 100 free trades apply to equity trades OR mutual fund purchases which is also a really nice feature. I haven't used their online platform just yet but I am very interested and am seriously considering switching banks to consolidate most of my accounts with them. I hope that Bank of America can match their offer. 3) Omnium TDA Omnium is actually a investment newsletter provider but they have negotiated a deal with TDAmeritrade to provide free mutual fund investing to their customers. All you have to do is pay the $99.00/year annual fee plus $50.00 per additional account and you get unlimited free mutual fund investing. You're account looks like any other TDAmeritrade account which isn't bad because when I used Ameritrade their software was pretty good. Definitely worth taking a look at. 4) Think or Swim I don't know a whole lot about these guys but they have been around for a few years now and they seem to pride themselves on having exceptional software for active traders. I am not an active trader so I can't really comment on whether they live up to that claim but in the demo I found things somewhat confusing. They do offer to pay up-to $100.00 of your ACAT transfer fees when you move an account to them and they also offer 3 free mutual fund trades a month. Not a bad offer all in all. 4) Zecco Zecco is new on the scene and offers up-to 40 free trades a month if you have an account balance of $2,500.00 (much lower than the alternatives); if you reach the 40 trade limit in a month it's only $3.50 per trade after that. Zecco started out as a social networking site for investors and other financial gurus and has since evolved into a discount brokerage. There's no doubt that they are an excellent value but they are so young it remains to be seen if they will be able to make it in such a fiercely competitive industry without charging for the majority of their services. Some other competition you might want to check out: E*Trade TDAmeritrade Firstrade Charles Schwab Muriel Siebert Keep reading and I'll try to write soon with the outcome of my new brokerage search.]]>

Learning to debug problems

2007-02-08T19:05:04Z

I am a computer programmer and as a result I have to be pretty good at tracking down problems in things and successfully debugging them. When debugging it's imperative that a concrete methodology is applied. Here are some tips for debugging (these can apply to more than just computer programs!) 1) Assume the problem lies in something you have changed. I find a good first assumption that you created the problem if you are debugging something you have written. It's not likely that the operating system or the tools that have been used by many other people have the most obvious flaws. It's much more common for errors to be in your newly developed code. It's also much easier to find flaws in code you wrote than in the millions of lines of code the comprise the tools programmers use every day. 2) Start simple and work your way up from there. It's an uncertain world and there could be any number of things wrong when you are debugging a problem but everyone has to start somewhere and it's the simplest things that give us the most progress. 3) Debugging is always a process of elimination My third rule of thumb is that debugging is never readily obvious. You always have to start with an assumption, make a hypothesis and prove it right or wrong. Then repeat until you actually find the problem. These are simple rules but they will take you far down the path of debugging and it's amazing how many people I know that don't apply them!

Visually navigating information with Grokker

2007-02-07T04:44:31Z

My roommate told me about a new search service calle Grokker that allows you to visually browse the information. I didn't quite understand what he meant when he was telling me about it but I checked it out and it's actually really cool. It's basically a search engine that automatically categorizes information in groups and allows you to visually navigate the "map." I could see something like this being really useful for research. It's always interesting to see new ways that people are visualizing data. I believe over the next 10 years visualization will be some of the biggest challenges that we will face in the computing and scientific communities. Try it out at: www.grokker.com Make sure you click on the map tab when the search results come up.